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To apply for summer research-stipend funding, I am to write a memo to my dean describing my proposed project. That makes sense. I get that.

But there is a detail that is not quite so self-evident. The stipend-application instructions specify that I am to explain the "[r]elationship between this project and [my] overall scholarly agenda."

Why is that a good thing?

I understand why it's good to have a scholarly agenda. It makes sense to thoughtfully plan out what you intend to do and in what order you plan to do it. But why should the items on the agenda necessarily interrelate? 

Clearly the single-theme-scholarship paradigm works well for many people. But why should it be viewed as generally desirable? 

Did this paradigm arise and become entrenched as conventional wisdom without much thought or deliberation? Did it catch on because it just sounds good? Or this a considered judgment of the legal academy?